Following Stereo Deluxe from the basement to Rib Fest

There are band stickers that will never come off the faux-oak paneling, posters of Guns-N-Roses and The Who, olive green carpet and the heavy odor of decades of sweat in this rehearsal room.

Fifty- and 60-watt amplifiers fill the basement with disarray as each musician warms up, flexes and tunes to his own sound. A couple of microphone checks and an inquisitive thumbs-up from the lead, Jay Elliott, followed by a round of nods from the rest of the band, and they’re off, tearing through an unusually long play-list.

The drummer’s mom is upstairs — after all, it is her house — and the basement thunders for almost 35 minutes without so much as a 10-second break between songs. Stereo Deluxe plays like a machine, like a streaming music file. Every song leads into the next. Sometimes Elliott will call out the title. Occasionally, the bassist, Luke Schneider, will just start into a distinctive line, or Matt Hogan, the drummer, into a signature rhythm, and that’s enough to let everyone know what song is next.

Elliott calls this “back catalog” — going through all the older originals and covers that haven’t been played in a while, making sure everything still clicks. Everything seems to loosen up as they start “Revolution,” a track from the self-titled debut album they released last year. After they finish, Elliott suggests they play it again from the bridge, “just for good measure.” Such practices usually last between two and three hours, and this balmy Tuesday session is no different.

Now it’s Elliott, Schneider, Hogan and Ben Tatum standing on the stone porch of a house in Bloomington, winding down after playing another cancer benefit on the nearby Indiana University campus. They sip High Life and Pabst Blue Ribbon and smoke, talking variably about the show, the people in the house and whether or when they want to leave. Music slips out through the door from the gathering inside, and there’s a deep sense of relaxation.

The guys who’ve known each other since the days of Sega Genesis and sneaking beers have made it through 10 years (since they were called Ultra Violet, Jackrabbit Slim and Unreel). The oldest member of the group is in his young 20s.

They started out as friends, and they remain friends. That in itself seems remarkable. Throw in that they’ve also been playing live shows, developing as musicians, earning degrees, working part-time jobs and sifting through more girlfriends than fan mail.

Across the country, hundreds if not thousands of dingy basements and garages are filled with wannabe bands, from prepubescent dreamers to washed-up musicians. They follow the rock ’n’ roll dream. Just as many bars and makeshift recording studios feature self-dubbed future rock stars and the next “the next.” Most of them won’t make it. Most of them will never sell more than a hundred CDs or play in front of more than 50 barflies. The guys from Stereo Deluxe say they know that. They say they know how the odds stack up and, quite frankly, they say they’re past that.

“Obviously, there’s the dream of being a massive rock band, being on top of the world, touring all the time and making millions of dollars,” Elliott says. “But that’s just such an unlikely thing. While I think it’s always nice to fantasize about stuff like that, I think, much more close to reality, we really could accomplish this: to turn the band into something marketable enough and, you know, attractive enough that we can make a decent life.”

There has been some talk among the group about taking the plunge, moving to L.A. and committing themselves totally to creating music. Some of the guys still live on their parents’ dime, and no one really relies on the work of the band to pay rent or survive. That, according to Elliott, is part of the allure of moving, the allure of going West (or East), for better or worse.

“It’s a self-exploration thing we want to do as a band,” he says. “Not because the shows are bigger or for better money. If anything, we’re an established band in Indianapolis, so our shows are gonna be biggest in Indianapolis because that’s where people know us and that’s where we know people. I think it would be more about just going and seeing what we’re made of, seeing how we stack up to bands that are doing it in a bigger market.”

They say the music and the camaraderie are at the core of the band, and while things like having lots of fans and being the headliners may fade away, there will always be Elliott, Schneider, Hogan and Tatum — friends.

WHAT: Stereo Deluxe, AC/DShe, Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo at Rib America Festival
WHEN: Friday, Aug. 31 at 5 p.m.; free before 5 p.m., $4 after 5 p.m., children age 12 and under are free (Rib America runs Friday, Aug. 31 until Monday, Sept. 3, gates open at 11 a.m.)
WHERE: Military Park, Indianapolis
WEB: www.stereodeluxemusic.com